Being Stalked: A Psychiatrist\u27s Perspective

It is only recently that stalking has been criminalized after some highly publicized forensic cases. Psychiatric focus has been on erotomania, and in this article we primarily highlight stalking as a separate entity with psychiatric and legal implications. The case reports reveal our vulnerability as therapists, and we hope will raise our awareness of stalking as a potentially dangerous situation. The legal statutes vary in different states, but our recommendations may provide guidelines towards formulating policies and procedures for the safety of healthcare providers

Effects of Prior Acute Exercise on Circulating Cytokine Concentration Responses to a High-fat Meal

High-fat meal consumption alters the circulating cytokine profile and contributes to cardiometabolic diseases. A prior bout of exercise can ameliorate the triglyceride response to a high-fat meal, but the interactive effects of exercise and high-fat meals on cytokines that mediate cardiometabolic risk are not fully understood. We investigated the effects of prior exercise on the responses of circulating tumor necrosis factor-a (TNF-a), interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-8, leptin, retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), placental growth factor (PlGF), and soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase-1 (sFlt-1) to a high-fat meal. Ten healthy men were studied before and 4 h after ingestion of a high-fat meal either with or without ~50 min of endurance exercise at 70% of VO2 max on the preceding day. In response to the high-fat meal, lower leptin and higher VEGF, bFGF, IL-6, and IL-8 concentrations were evident (P \u3c 0.05 for all). There was no effect of the high-fat meal on PlGF, TNF-a, or RBP4 concentrations. We found lower leptin concentrations with prior exercise (P \u3c 0.05) and interactive effects of prior exercise and the high-fat meal on sFlt-1 (P \u3c 0.05). The high-fat meal increased IL-6 by 59% without prior exercise and 218% with prior exercise (P \u3c 0.05). In conclusion, a prior bout of endurance exercise does not affect all high-fat meal–induced changes in circulating cytokines, but does affect fasting or postprandial concentrations of IL-6, leptin, and sFlt-1. These data may reflect a salutary effect of prior exercise on metabolic responses to a high-fat meal

Combinatorially selected defense peptides as an innovative approach to the management of fusarium head blight in wheat [abstract]

Abstract only availableFusarium graminearum (teleomorph Gibberella zeae) is the causal agent of head blight in wheat. In wheat-producing areas of the world, incidence of this disease can result in dramatic reductions in grain yield and quality. Another important concern associated with Fusarium head blight is the accumulation of various mycotoxins that are produced by the fungus. These mycotoxins cause serious illness in livestock and also in humans. Currently, only limited genetic resistance to head blight is available; management is primarily based on chemical controls. Amid worries of the potential dangers to human, animal, and environmental health associated with pesticide use, new management strategies must be developed. Defense peptides, from combinatorial libraries, have been shown to inhibit growth and development of Phytophthora capsici and Phakopsora pachyrhizi. We are now endeavoring to identify defense peptides that bind to receptors along the surface of Fusarium graminearum germlings and similarly inhibit their growth and further development. In addition to plant disease, several other members of the genus Fusarium are known to cause human infections. This is particularly a problem for those individuals who possess compromised immune systems. As an extension of this research, it is our hope to use defense peptide technologies against these pathogens, and that the resulting therapies show less human toxicity than those available today.U.S. Wheat & Barely Scab Initiativ

DISCUSSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ON USING DIFFERENT POINT-TO-POINT PROTOCOLS FOR TRANSPORT AND DISPERSION MODEL EVALUATIONS

Historically, assessments of T&D models have involved comparisons to field trial data using quantities derived from observations – maximum concentrations, plume widths, or integrated concentrations over arcs at various downwind ranges. Recently several methodologies that compare observations and predictions paired in space and time have been developed. Two different protocols designed to deal with low observed or predicted values have emerged. One of these protocols requires that both the observation and the prediction must exceed a specified threshold before being considered in the comparison. The other protocol requires that either the observation or the prediction must exceed a specified threshold before being considered in the comparison. This presentation compares the potential effects of applying these two protocols to T&D model assessments

Low-density series expansions for directed percolation I: A new efficient algorithm with applications to the square lattice

A new algorithm for the derivation of low-density series for percolation on directed lattices is introduced and applied to the square lattice bond and site problems. Numerical evidence shows that the computational complexity grows exponentially, but with a growth factor \lambda < \protect{\sqrt[8]{2}}, which is much smaller than the growth factor \lambda = \protect{\sqrt[4]{2}} of the previous best algorithm. For bond (site) percolation on the directed square lattice the series has been extended to order 171 (158). Analysis of the series yields sharper estimates of the critical points and exponents.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures (3 of them > 1Mb

The Role of Haptic Expectations in Reaching to Grasp: From Pantomime to Natural Grasps and Back Again

© Copyright © 2020 Whitwell, Katz, Goodale and Enns. When we reach to pick up an object, our actions are effortlessly informed by the object’s spatial information, the position of our limbs, stored knowledge of the object’s material properties, and what we want to do with the object. A substantial body of evidence suggests that grasps are under the control of “automatic, unconscious” sensorimotor modules housed in the “dorsal stream” of the posterior parietal cortex. Visual online feedback has a strong effect on the hand’s in-flight grasp aperture. Previous work of ours exploited this effect to show that grasps are refractory to cued expectations for visual feedback. Nonetheless, when we reach out to pretend to grasp an object (pantomime grasp), our actions are performed with greater cognitive effort and they engage structures outside of the dorsal stream, including the ventral stream. Here we ask whether our previous finding would extend to cued expectations for haptic feedback. Our method involved a mirror apparatus that allowed participants to see a “virtual” target cylinder as a reflection in the mirror at the start of all trials. On “haptic feedback” trials, participants reached behind the mirror to grasp a size-matched cylinder, spatially coincident with the virtual one. On “no-haptic feedback” trials, participants reached behind the mirror and grasped into “thin air” because no cylinder was present. To manipulate haptic expectation, we organized the haptic conditions into blocked, alternating, and randomized schedules with and without verbal cues about the availability of haptic feedback. Replicating earlier work, we found the strongest haptic effects with the blocked schedules and the weakest effects in the randomized uncued schedule. Crucially, the haptic effects in the cued randomized schedule was intermediate. An analysis of the influence of the upcoming and immediately preceding haptic feedback condition in the cued and uncued random schedules showed that cuing the upcoming haptic condition shifted the haptic influence on grip aperture from the immediately preceding trial to the upcoming trial. These findings indicate that, unlike cues to the availability of visual feedback, participants take advantage of cues to the availability of haptic feedback, flexibly engaging pantomime, and natural modes of grasping to optimize the movement

Thin Fisher Zeroes

Biskup et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 84 (2000) 4794] have recently suggested that the loci of partition function zeroes can profitably be regarded as phase boundaries in the complex temperature or field planes. We obtain the Fisher zeroes for Ising and Potts models on non-planar (``thin'') regular random graphs using this approach, and note that the locus of Fisher zeroes on a Bethe lattice is identical to the corresponding random graph. Since the number of states appears as a parameter in the Potts solution the limiting locus of chromatic zeroes is also accessible.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure